


Iridescent

by GaryTheFish



Series: Hope is a Four Letter Word [16]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Coping Mechanisms, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaryTheFish/pseuds/GaryTheFish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you were standing in the wake of devastation<br/>When you were waiting on the edge of the unknown<br/>And with the cataclysm raining down<br/>Insides crying, "Save me now!"<br/>You were there, impossibly alone</p><p>And in a burst of light that blinded every angel<br/>As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars<br/>You felt the gravity of tempered grace<br/>Falling into empty space<br/>No one there to catch you in their arms</p><p>(What do you remember?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iridescent

**Author's Note:**

> **Trigger Warning: Allusions to previous torture.**  
>  Please be safe, know your limits, and take care of yourselves!

Even Malibu was quiet at two in the morning. They were far removed from the noise and bustle, even during the day, but there was a different feeling to the darkness at this hour. The silence drifted around her as she lay stretched on the couch, head propped up on a pillow, a book in her hands. There were other things to be done, she knew. Answering Stark’s email. Sorting through the paperwork on the house. Laundry. Sleeping. None of them appealed to her, except perhaps the last, but she had already tried it with no success. It was an off day, and that was that.

A muffled sound from the back of the house, and then another as the door to the master bedroom opened. She heard him come into the hallway, his footsteps quick and nearly silent. They stopped after only a step or two, and she realized that he had paused at the open doorway to her empty room. The sound resumed again almost immediately, and she looked up as he skidded into the doorway of the living room, a slightly panicked look on his face. Relief flooded his features when he saw her, his shoulders visibly sagging in the lamplight.

She closed her book, not bothering to mark the page as she tossed it aside.

“What’s wrong?”

He leaned his forehead against the doorjamb for a moment, then turned his face toward her. “Can you be strong?” he asked. “Because I can’t. Not tonight.”

“Yes,” she replied, pulling herself up a little. “Do you need to talk?”

“Maybe,“ he admitted. “But I need to listen first.”

Her brow knit. It wasn’t what she had been expecting to hear. “Listen to what?”

He didn’t answer immediately; he seemed torn between pride and shame. “Your heartbeat. Your breath.” He hung his head a little. “I need to hear you live.”

She pushed the blanket from her legs and stood. The floorboards were cold beneath her bare feet as she crossed the room and took his hand. She pulled gently, and he followed her back to the couch. She gestured for him to lie down, and then she stretched out next to him. He tucked himself between her body and the back of the couch, head on her chest and arms wrapped tightly around her waist. She arranged the blanket over both of them. They lay together in the warm silence, and with every minute that passed, she could sense the tension draining from his body. She ran her fingers gently along his temple, feeling the sweat along his hairline.

She closed her eyes, her hand still moving in its soothing pattern. She felt complete with him in her arms - whole in a way that she had forgotten was possible. She wasn’t sure what it was, even now; she’d long ago given up trying to make sense of it, had done her level best to justify the price she had paid to have him. His arms tightened around her, almost in answer to her thoughts. The cost to him had been no less, but he had paid it gladly. She felt the weight of his head on her chest, his own heart beating faintly against her side, and she realized in that moment that neither one of them was finished paying. The thought made her ache a little.

“The pain didn’t bother me,” he said after a long time. The sound of his voice surprised her; she had thought him asleep. “He learned that early on. The threats. The beatings. The cold. The pain. Solitude. They meant nothing, not at first. I had earned much worse from Odin’s hand. It was the dark I hated. The silence. The moment he found that out, it was over.”

His voice was quiet and clinical. He might have been reading a newspaper.

“The first time it happened, I thought I was dead. Then I realized it was much worse than death could ever be.

“I would be brought to him, and to his table,” he continued, “or he would come to me, wherever I had been cast after our previous meeting. He would ask his questions. He would do his work. When he did not get what he wanted, or sometimes even when he did, he would leave, and he would take the light with him. It wasn’t even darkness. It was an absence. I could see nothing. I could feel nothing. There was nothing there but sound. My own breath. My own heartbeat. My own blood rushing through my veins. The Void creaking around me like a ship of the damned, with every nightmare I could imagine screaming from the hold.” The words were pouring out of him now, and she knew he could not stop them. He had held them too long, too worried for her and too afraid to let them go. “Voices. So many voices. Some I knew, others I didn’t, but they all knew me. I don’t know how long it lasted the first time before I went mad. Only when I spoke back did they begin to go away. I was grateful at first, until I realized that it was all vanishing. Before long, I was left with nothing but a heartbeat. Then he stopped even that.

“Eventually, he came back. He always did, though he would leave me in the dark longer and longer each time. After a while, I began to fear solitude. Being alone became unbearable. I found that I looked forward to seeing him. To hearing his voice. To hearing my own screams, or worse. It was far better than the alternative.”

She swallowed against the wave of nausea that went through her, her fingers still stroking his temple.

He seemed to come to himself. “Most nights aren’t this bad,” he said, a little apologetically. “I haven’t dreamed of him in weeks, but tonight was different. I was there again, in his workshop, but I was not alone, and I was not the one on his table.” His voice was halting. Each word was costing him dearly now, and she suddenly realized that she didn’t want to hear the ones that were coming.

“He took you apart in front of me, piece by piece. He laughed the whole time and left me with nothing but your heartbeat, pulsing in my hands like a candle flame. When that light went out… when it was gone, so was everything else. I woke up. I thought it was just a dream.” His voice caught a little. “But then I couldn’t find you.”

“I’m here,” she said. “Right where I should be.”

She could almost feel the weight being lifted from him; he let out a long breath. There was hesitation in his voice. “May I stay? There’s not much night left; I won’t keep you long.”

“Night, day… it doesn’t matter,” she answered. “Stay as long as you need to.”

Something that might have been a laugh left his lips. “Then you realize we might never leave this couch.”

She rested her cheek on his hair, her fingers gentle on the back of his neck. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by the incomparable MaliceManaged and the ever delightful rottenlittleboys. Any mistakes are my own. Thanks and appropriate showers of affection!
> 
> Title and lyric from "Iridescent" by Linkin Park.
> 
> Feedback appreciated!


End file.
